The Hindu : Conversions: tackle the root cause

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 22, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Conversions: tackle the root cause

By Kanti Biswas

The Tamil Nadu Government at the initiative of its Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, in condemnable and unwarranted haste, enacted the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Act, rejecting the views and appeals of the Opposition parties and the minority communities. The Sangh Parivar and the BJP have extended full support and welcomed the act of Ms. Jayalalithaa. The BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the BJP spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, the VHP leader, Praveen Togadia, and the RSS head, K.S. Sudarshan, hope that all BJP-ruled States would come out with a similar Act.

It has been provided in the Act that if any person, violating the guidelines stated therein, converts someone from one religion to another, he shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of three years or with a fine of Rs. 50,000 or with both. If the convert is either a Dalit or a woman, the term of imprisonment will be five years and fine Rs. 1 lakh. From this, it transpires that the main target group of this legislation is Dalits.

Why have the Dalits been identified as the most vulnerable section for conversion to other religions?

There is no denying the fact that in 1979, in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu, 58 Dalit families tried to embrace Islam, but this was prevented by the State Government. But no sympathy was shown and no effort taken to address the causes of their decision to convert — they wanted emancipation from the age-old social, economic and political tyranny perpetrated on them by the higher castes.

In 1981, in Meenakshipuram, an entire village of Dalits converted to Islam and this act caused much tension and controversy. Hindu leaders expressed their anguish and threatened the Muslims with dire consequences. Before the conversion, the Dalits had run from pillar to post in an effort to improve their lot, but in vain.

When Dalits convert to Islam or Christianity, they are deprived of reservation in education and government service. They also many a time become estranged from family and friends. In spite of these impediments, why do Dalits decide to convert to Islam or Christianity?

Tamil Nadu has set many glorious examples. It was the first province in India to allow women to vote in the 1921 elections to the Legislative Assembly. In 1926, Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay became the first woman in the country to contest the Assembly election in the State, though she was defeated by only 518 votes.

Conversely, at the initiative of the All-India Democratic Women's Association and under the leadership of its general secretary, Brinda Karat, an agitation was launched against the uncivilised two-tumbler system being practised in some teashops in the State.

Recently, in Thinniyam village in Tiruchi district, a Dalit was forced to eat human excreta and in a village in Dindigul district, another Dalit was forced to drink urine. These events signify merely the tip of the iceberg of the casteism being practised in Tamil Nadu. An Editorial in Dalit Murasu said, "These incidents are real issues that `force' the Dalits away from the Hindu fold." In many parts of the State, Dalits are not allowed to wear shirts and footwear, they are not allowed to draw water from a common source and are not allowed to use the streets where caste Hindus live.

One Dalit in Uthiramerur was not allowed to occupy the house he had bought in a locality where the upper castes live. Last year, a girl inadvertently touched a water tap in a school and for this "unpardonable offence" she was penalised in such a way by a lady teacher that she lost her eyes. Many posts of panchayat presidents reserved for Dalits have remained vacant for the past six years due to opposition from the upper castes.

According to "Crime in India - 1999", published by the National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, the registered offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act committed in Tamil Nadu numbered 883 and 105 respectively. Not a single such offence, the report said, was committed in West Bengal and Tripura.

N. Varadarajan, State CPI (M) secretary, and R. Nallakannu, State CPI secretary, have said that instead of passing the Anti-Conversion Act, Ms. Jayalalithaa should have addressed the root cause — the inhuman and cruel treatment meted out to the Dalits by the caste Hindus.

Tamil Nadu is not the only State where such brutal acts take place. Two constables belonging to the Scheduled Caste community in Maharashtra were lynched to death by the custodians of a Hanuman temple, which they entered to seek shelter from rain.

Five Dalits were recently butchered near a police station in Jhajjar, in Haryana, by caste Hindus after a dispute over a cow. From Haryana to Karnataka and from Rajasthan and Gujarat to Bihar, many such heinous and shameful instances have taken place even after 55 years of Independence. Numerous case studies and surveys, along with books by celebrated sociologists, have proved that the cause of conversion of Dalits to another religion is not force or allurement but the barbarous and brutal treatment by one section of Hindus against them.

The argument put forward by supporters of the Tamil Nadu Anti-Conversion Act are that the Anti-Conversion Act of Orissa, 1967, and those of Madhya Pradesh of 1968 and of Arunachal Pradesh of 1977 have not been declared by the Supreme Court as repugnant to Article 25 and 26 of the Constitution (guaranteeing right to freedom of religion) but H.M. Seervai, a luminary of Constitutional law, has observed: "The judgment of the Supreme Court is clearly wrong and it is productive of greatest public mischief and ought to be overruled".

(The writer is Minister for Education in the West Bengal Government).

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